Once you can name the 33 letters, the next question is: what sound does each one make? This page gives the citation value of every letter — the full, clear sound it has when it sits in a stressed syllable and nothing is interfering with it. That is the value you should learn first, because everything else in Russian pronunciation is a modification of it. The two big modifications — unstressed vowels weakening (akanye and ikanye) and voiced consonants hardening at the end of a word (final devoicing) — each have their own page. Here we learn the letters at full strength.
The ten vowel letters as five pairs
This is the single most important idea in the whole writing system, so meet it now even though it gets a full treatment on the hard/soft vowel letters page. Russian has only five vowel sounds, but ten vowel letters, arranged in two columns:
| Sound | Hard-series letter | Soft-series letter |
|---|---|---|
| "ah" | А а | Я я |
| "oh" | О о | Ё ё |
| "eh" | Э э | Е е |
| "oo" | У у | Ю ю |
| "ih/ee" | Ы ы | И и |
The two letters in each row stand for almost the same vowel sound. The difference is what they tell you about the consonant before them:
- A soft-series letter (я ё е ю и) after a consonant says "the consonant before me is soft (palatalized)."
- A soft-series letter at the start of a word, or after another vowel, or after ъ/ь, instead carries an initial /j/ ("y") glide: я = /ja/, ё = /jo/, е = /je/, ю = /ju/.
я
I — at the start of a word, я = 'ya' /ja/.
мяч
ball — here я does not add a 'y'; it softens the м, giving 'myach'. Same letter, different job depending on position.
моя́
my (feminine) — 'maya': here я follows a vowel, so it carries the /j/: mo-ya.
The consonants: mostly one letter, one sound
The good news is that Russian consonant letters are overwhelmingly one-to-one with their sounds, far more reliably than English. Here is the full citation table.
| Letter | Citation sound | English anchor |
|---|---|---|
| Б б | /b/ | bed |
| В в | /v/ | vine |
| Г г | /g/ | go (but see the /v/ surprise below) |
| Д д | /d/ | do |
| Ж ж | /ʐ/ | the s in measure (always hard) |
| З з | /z/ | zoo |
| Й й | /j/ | the y in boy |
| К к | /k/ | kit |
| Л л | /l/ | between "ll" of "full" (hard) and "l" of "leaf" (soft) |
| М м | /m/ | map |
| Н н | /n/ | no |
| П п | /p/ | pen |
| Р р | /r/ | a rolled/trilled r (Spanish perro) |
| С с | /s/ | sun |
| Т т | /t/ | top |
| Ф ф | /f/ | fish |
| Х х | /x/ | the ch in Scottish loch — rougher than English h |
| Ц ц | /ts/ | the ts in cats (always hard) |
| Ч ч | /tɕ/ | the ch in church (always soft) |
| Ш ш | /ʂ/ | the sh in shop (always hard) |
| Щ щ | /ɕː/ | a long, soft sh — "fresh sheep" run together |
Most of these letters have a hard version and a soft version depending on the following vowel letter or soft sign, but the identity of the consonant does not change — /t/ stays a kind of /t/ whether hard (тот) or soft (тётя). Three letters — ж, ш, ц — are always hard no matter what follows, and three — ч, щ, й — are always soft. That fact drives several spelling rules you will meet later.
хлеб
bread — 'khlep': Х is the rough /x/, and the final б devoices to /p/ at the end of the word (see final devoicing).
щи
cabbage soup — 'shchi': Щ is the long soft sh, a sound English does not have.
The top surprise: г pronounced /v/ in -ого / -его
Here is the one consonant rule that ambushes nearly every beginner. In the very common genitive adjective and pronoun endings -ого and -его, the letter г is pronounced /v/, not /g/. This is not optional and not dialectal — it is standard Russian, and it appears in some of the highest-frequency words in the language.
его́
his / him — spelled with г but pronounced 'yevo' /jɪˈvo/, NOT 'yego'.
сего́дня
today — pronounced 'syevodnya' /sʲɪˈvodnʲə/, with г = /v/ in the -его- piece.
ничего́
nothing / it's okay — pronounced 'nichevo', g sounds like v.
большо́го
big (genitive masc./neuter) — 'balshova': the -ого ending again gives г = /v/.
A close relative: in a few words г softens to the /x/ sound, most famously мягкий ("soft") and лёгкий ("light/easy"), where -гк- is pronounced -хк-: "myákhki," "lyókhki." And the word бог ("God") is traditionally pronounced "bokh" with /x/. These are a short, memorisable list rather than a broad rule.
The sounds Russian does not have
It is just as useful to know which English sounds are absent, so you stop reaching for them:
- No "th" — neither the think sound /θ/ nor the this sound /ð/ exists. English th in loanwords becomes /t/ or /s/ (триллер "thriller," Смит "Smith").
- No English "w" — there is no /w/. The letter that looks like a backwards W situation does not arise; English w in loanwords becomes /v/ (ви́ски "whisky" → "viski") or is absorbed into a /u/ glide.
- No soft English "h" — the breathy English /h/ does not exist. Russian х is the rougher /x/ of loch, made with friction at the back of the mouth. English h in names is rendered with х or sometimes г (Гарри / Харри for "Harry").
ви́ски
whisky — 'viski': the English 'w' becomes /v/ because Russian has no /w/.
хокке́й
hockey — 'khokkey': English 'h' becomes the rough Russian /x/.
Minimal pair: how a vowel letter rewrites the consonant
To feel the hard/soft system in your own mouth, compare two words that differ in a single vowel letter. The consonant spelling is identical (м); only the vowel letter changes, and that letter reaches back and changes the м.
мал
(he is) small — 'mal': а is a hard-series vowel, so м is hard, pronounced with the tongue flat.
мял
(he) crumpled — 'myal': я is the soft-series partner of а, so the SAME consonant м is now soft (palatalized) — the tongue rises toward the palate. The vowel quality barely changes; the consonant is what differs.
This is the heart of the matter: in Russian, the vowel letter is often a message about the consonant, not just a vowel in its own right. The fully developed version of this idea — including why ы never starts a word and why и after ж/ш/ц is pronounced like ы — lives on the hard and soft vowel letters page.
A note on what this page does NOT cover
Everything above is the stressed, citation value. In real speech two systematic changes apply, each on its own page:
- Vowel reduction: unstressed о sounds like /a/ (akanye) and unstressed е/я weaken toward /i/ (ikanye). So молоко́ ("milk") is pronounced "malako," with only the stressed final о clear. See vowel reduction (akanye).
- Final devoicing: voiced consonants at the end of a word lose their voicing — б→п, д→т, г→к, з→с, в→ф, ж→ш. So друг ("friend") ends in a /k/ sound. See final devoicing.
Learn the citation values first; the reductions are predictable adjustments layered on top.
Common Mistakes
❌ его → 'yego'
Incorrect — in -его the г is pronounced /v/: 'yevo'.
✅ его → 'yevo'
his / him.
❌ сегодня → 'segodnya'
Incorrect — г in the -его- chunk is /v/, and unstressed о reduces: 'syevodnya'.
✅ сегодня → 'syevodnya'
today.
❌ хорошо → 'horosho' with a soft English h
Incorrect — Х is the rough /x/ of 'loch', not English /h/.
✅ хорошо → 'kharasho'
good / well (also showing two reduced unstressed o's).
❌ Смит → 'Smith' with a th-sound
Incorrect — Russian has no /θ/; the name is rendered and said with /t/.
✅ Смит → 'Smit'
Smith.
❌ мял → 'mal' (same as мал)
Incorrect — the я makes the м SOFT; мял and мал are different words.
✅ мял ≠ мал
'myal' (crumpled) vs 'mal' (small) — the consonant softness distinguishes them.
Key Takeaways
- This page gives the stressed citation value of every letter; reductions come later.
- Five vowel sounds, ten vowel letters in hard/soft pairs (а/я, о/ё, э/е, у/ю, ы/и).
- A soft-series vowel letter either softens the preceding consonant or adds a /j/ glide, depending on position.
- Consonants are mostly one-to-one, far more reliable than English. ж/ш/ц are always hard; ч/щ/й always soft.
- The big surprise: г = /v/ in the endings -ого/-его (его = "yevo," сегодня = "syevodnya"); learn it as a chunk.
- Russian lacks "th," English "w," and soft English "h"; х is the rough /x/ of loch.
Now practice Russian
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Start learning Russian→Related Topics
- The Cyrillic AlphabetA1 — All 33 letters of the modern Russian alphabet — their printed forms, names, and approximate sounds — sorted into the familiar friends, the dangerous false friends that look Latin but aren't, and the brand-new shapes you must learn from scratch.
- Hard and Soft Vowel LettersA2 — The central design principle of Cyrillic: vowel letters come in hard/soft pairs (а–я, о–ё, э–е, у–ю, ы–и), and the choice of letter encodes whether the consonant before it is hard or soft — the engine behind palatalization and nearly every Russian spelling rule.
- Vowel Reduction: Akanye (о and а)A1 — In unstressed syllables Russian merges о and а and reduces them — a clear /ɐ/ just before the stress and a faint schwa /ə/ elsewhere — so the letter о sounds like 'o' only when stressed, which is the single most accent-defining feature of Russian.
- Final Consonant DevoicingA2 — Russian devoices its voiced obstruents at the end of a word — б→п, в→ф, г→к, д→т, ж→ш, з→с — so го́род ends in 't' and друг ends in 'k', though the spelling never changes and the voicing returns the moment a vowel ending follows.
- Russian Pronunciation: OverviewA1 — A map of Russian phonology built on four pillars — unpredictable mobile stress, heavy vowel reduction, hard/soft consonant pairs, and final devoicing/assimilation — and the headline news that Russian spelling is largely phonemic once you know where the stress falls.
- The Letter ЁA2 — The letter ё is always stressed and always pronounced /jo/ or soft-consonant + 'o' — yet in everyday Russian it is routinely printed as plain е with the dots dropped, so learners must know when a written е is secretly a ё, and never read ё as 'ye'.